Va Tech A Year Later - Tax The Bullets!

by Robert Wilkinson

At the risk of arousing contentious bullet worshipers, I feel that this one year anniversary of a whack job taking out way too many young innocents on a college campus warrants a moment of reflection. To that end, I'm reprinting the article I posted a year ago.

Not to be offensive, but last year I was hit with some very strident arguments against nonviolence. So if you disagree with the tenor of this post, or want to debate gun laws and the efficacy of violence as a deterrent to violence, please meditate on the law of "as you do so shall be done to you" instead of leaving a comment.

For those who need to challenge my point of view, PLEEZE read the comment stream in the original article if you want to know where I stand on everything from using the word "whackjob" to my philosophy about violence. Those who leave a comment already answered will be referenced to the comment stream in the original article for the sake of economy of energy. Grazie.

Comments

lax gun control is definitely an issue but i think the other real lesson here is that we as a society pay when we don't have mechanisms for spotting and taking care of mental illness. especially on college campuses. i have little sympathy for the shooter but still i think 'whack job' is a little - erm - over harsh. this kid had mental problems & he slipped through the cracks too many times. his parents didn't notice, didn't reach out enough, failed in their responsibility. but the school also failed to take the signs seriously enough. i've seen the 'positive' effects (if that can be said) at the college i go to - lots of renewed concern about mental health & looking out for warning signs. but it's still worrisome and a truly horrible loss.

Hi dottiem - I already addressed criticisms about my use of the term "whackjob" in the comment stream in the original article. He did in fact "whack" his victims in the common use of that term. And while I am in agreement that a very disturbed kid fell through the cracks and was allowed easy access to too many guns and bullets, my attitude about the shooter is not nearly as harsh as the pain that the parents of the dead are still suffering as I write these words.

Sometimes people need to be called on what they do and cause and maybe the term,"whack job" is harsh and not "politically correct", but it's really appropriate, too--with all of the carnage that he created.
Sometimes, there's too much vision of life through rose colored glasses--wanting to see something better, not wanting to believe that people can be so horrible.
Some people, whether with or without mental illness, are just no damn good (it took me awhile to really understand this and not offer up 1 million reasons "why" they're like they are).

I like the native north american model, now long since obliterated in action. When someone in the tribe lost the plot and behaved badly, they were not ostracized or shunned or cast out into the wilderness. They were brought more closely into the fold so that the source of suffering and the misconduct it wrought could be healed and harmony restored. Through inclusion and loving inquiry and a willingness to avoid seeing the aberrant one as "not one of us."

This is our problem, you see. We like to set apart the "whack jobs" and people who are "just no damn good," from the rest of humanity. As if they are not flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, breath of our breath. The whack job is you and I as much as anyone else. This is not idle moral relativity nor is it "I'm OK, you're OK" schmaltz. Our resistance to seeing our behaviour on a collective level, our fetishistic insistence on notions of individuality and separateness is the thing that creates the problem, that creates and unleashes our own monsters. The more we say, "that's not us, not one of us, not of us or part of us or anything like us, " the more power we give to its root movement _in_ us. For it _is_ in _us_. The more we deny it, the more we secretly become it. For what is murder, except to say, in an ultimate sort of fashion, you are not me, you are an _it_...

We are as much the shooter as the shooter himself. Thusly do we find the only sane starting point in seeking a solution to this crisis. As they say, to heal the environment you have to heal the environmentalist first.

To rid the world of unnecessary violence you need to neutralize criminality. The only way to neutralize something is to include it, _then_ transcend it in the cauldron of the compassionate heart. Heal it by eating it. That which wounded shall cure, oldest truism on the books.

To heal our criminals we must heal the persecutors, those who would throw the condeming stone, first.

Its not that difficult, actually. But the resources to do it don't yet exist, because we still fancy the dogma of prison and punishment. The paradigm shift has to start long before, with how we relate at the community level, interpersonally, and in the breakdown of the family unit. Doesn't have to conform to the dingo of old... mum, dad and 2.5 kids. But the fundamental lack society both enforces and suffers from, in terms of security of relationship and absence of basic decency or self-other/person-planet consideration... not to mention the overall effort needed to be put into character-building and awareness-fostering at core levels... all of this is a cause of huge species stress. By the time violent offenders become real threats there have been decades of neglect and missed opportunity. Why? Because we happen to like it that way. We're deep into denial and pretending the shit don't stink. Why? Because we want what we want. Why? Because we haven't yet made our peace with viewing mortality creatively. But I digress...

In "too-late" examples of advanced disturbance (and caution, we don't know if this shooter was driven by shadow contents or an ego complex gone astray...) the case needs a level of care and rehabilitation we have no model for but that is actually not too difficult to apply. Isolation but in group-based facilities. Radical alteration of diet to a wholly raw and vegan platform with emphasis on orthomolecular handling of the B vitamin family. In such 'no return' cases I think it would also be understood that the person should never again be left to lead a conventional life, but that once he/she has gone through the appropriate restoration of 'normality', the rest of the life would be lived devoted to service. With the kind of aggressive self-confrontation therapies, bodywork, diet modification, spiritual work, and creative expression avenues _we already know about_, even the most damaged cases can be routed back to balance within a few years. This is fact. We don't apply it because it's inconvenient and unpalatable to a mindset that like tautologies, cops and robbers.

Endgame point is, rage and anger beget more rage and anger. It has to stop somewhere. Otherwise, what _is_ the point?

The first step is getting rid of pernicious influence. You don't leave temptation and slippery slopes in the paths of mental/emotional children like us. It _is_ an outrage that bullets and guns can be so easily bought and distributed. Why aren't bullets $5,000 each? Or at least the cost of one uninsured day in hospital?

Why not? Because everything we have done as a society is wrong and crap. The whole thing has to be scraped and its not going to go quietly into this good night. These next twenty-five years are going to be hellish but opportune and I, for one, remain giddily optimistic. But only when things get beyond the pale can this so-called paradigm shift happen. And its not going to be pleasant.

This brings to mind, Kahlil Gibran.....
His view of crime and punishment. "Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of the pigmy-self and the day of his god-self. And the cornerstone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in it's foundation." I see this but also recognise that
if one has no remorse,then reprimand or release of a compassionate conscionse is needed. Evil does exist as well in this world in my opinion,and those that choose to follow that debase side of their natures for their own power may be educated or not,the soul knows it's own love and can step from it, alot is choice not just ignorance.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as good and evil. Only our _thinking_ makes it so. And our thinking is a direct and limited byproduct of the food we eat, and therefore secondarily, a snapshot in motion of our health at cellular and visceral levels. For example, most violence stems from congested liver under- or over-function.

What we mistake for choice in self and others is actually the limited possibility set of our constitutional bias. Restore proper input (diet), restore normality of function (via ultramolecular therapeutics) and suddenly you find that the thought patterns and disposition in "choices" changes. Radically.

We like to think it's the person at core who is responsible for the choices we make, that we have some autonomy in that respect. We're mistaken. Our inner chatter and therefore choices in action are governed by our cellular reality. Garbage in, garbage out style, its simply our environmental intake (food, drugs, TV, relationships etc) talking back to us. Nothing more. Nothing particularly special or esoteric about it, however much we like to "yah, but...." the simplest of truths.

I have a different take...and it is ref....victim/bully archtypes...the otherside of the victim who cannot stand up for himself, is the bully...who picks on others who can,t defend themsleves...in this case, from behind a rifle...where he/she then feels they have power. I do not believe that changing the diet of someone who most likely has low-self esteem due to power-control issues from others on a long-term basis....will create self-esteem. Domestic violence/abuse is a perfect example....women who have little or no self-esteem...attract abusers who then validate their inner feelings of "lack"...and at some point, they snap and kill
their abusers. I would not be surprized if alot of the profiles of these individuals that have commited these shootings on campuses, have self-worth-low self-esteem issues, and have been bullied, by parents/family/siblings...or authority....and they also have gotten to that snapping point. And we as a society keep trying to put a bandaid on a symptom...or like western medicine...attempt to supress the disease and hope it will go away....without out looking deeper as to what is causing the symptom.

>>I do not believe that changing the diet of someone who most likely has low-self esteem due to power-control issues from others on a long-term basis....will create self-esteem...<<

Respectfully, you are misinformed. It's not a question of belief. It's fact. Low self-esteem, like any other complex, has its root in biochemic condition. Behavioural conditionings constellate around the precusor. Denatured diet, denatured life. Adjust the biochemics and the persona changes shape, different life circumstances arrange themselves. Psychology doesn't come first, the body does.

"We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.” [Henry Miller]

respectfully...that is your perception, and when you say that I am mis-informed, you state that yours is the only view,... arrogance at its best, not allowing others their views as they don,t coincide with yours...more bullying-power/control issues, your long-winded ascertation bored me.........I am vegaterian...herb-trained/and utilizing....fitness-disiplined/and have a very strong connection with the earth....yet I have expierenced power/control issues which have nothing to do with the healthy lifestyle that I live....

Respectfully, you're in conversation with your own internal dramaturgy, speaking to bias and the limits of your experience. I'm speaking to empirical facts, not reactive opinion. Further, I'm not judging you ... even while I must point out that you are misinformed. I'm clarifying approach, presenting a current cutting-edge, as this is a core feature in my work as a metaphysician and educator.

As long as you emphasize the bully/victim, power/control worldview to the exclusion of the many other sorts of dialogues and engagements that are possible, you'll be unhappily limited to those dichotomies for the rest of your days.

"empical facts" Some of us are experiential learners who are rational enough to know the truths and the patterns of human relations that exist on this planet. Some people wether mentally or emotionally damaged are suseptible to outside spiritual influences,they could be cured.yes! exorcism could work .have you met someone or encountered their evil when they are posessed by darkness,Some get a gun and destroy the lives of many.It may have not been the man or the pygmy.
May the tears of compassion melt the sad hearts of all lost souls that they may find the love they crave deep within themselves. Aum Namah shivaya.